Veggie husband - how do people manage this?

[macneil]

My husband has been a vegetarian since he was about 12. He always had really nasty cheap gristly food when he was growing up, his mum never made fresh food, and it really makes him sick, the idea of it, the smell, look, taste of it. I know this is very very wimpy of him. I LOVE meat, and think frying a nice piece of fish and serving with veggies and salad is the easiest way to be thin - but, I love him, and have always agreed to eat veggie evening meals with him, and I have meaty sandwiches or whatever for lunch, and eat meat if we eat out.

I'm a bit worried about my (unborn) baby growing up veggie - I can give her meat in the day, but what if she wants it at night? I suppose I could fry her little chicken breast fillets and add them to veggie meals? It will freak my husband out, but I want her to grow up with enough protein and iron. Does anyone have experience of it being this way around - it's usually women who are veggies and men who like meat, but I seem always to have gone out with bloody weedy veggies! - and how did they manage?

Lazycow I totally agree about the eating out experience. I used to love restaurant meals but can't really enjoy my food while I'm watching dp pushing a pile of soggy risotto or (invariably) spinach & ricotta pasta round his plate & thinking he could do so much better at home

Veggie food can be delicious, what is wrong with restauranteurs not to recognise that?

Also miss the tradition of Sunday roast lunches a bit, but hey ho

The last two posts strike such a chord. There is always, even in really nice restaurants, one really heavy overcooked cheesey thing for veggies, and you can just see your dp re-reading all the menus desperately, thinking 'well, it's that or a salad', so it's easier to go for a restaurant that knows what it's doing, as I'm used to eating vegetarian and he doesn't have to look forlornly at his lump of starch. But oh to have a bloke who would cook me meat while not eating it himself! In the worst throes of morning sickness, he would go to Marks and buy me parma ham for my non-sickness-making bagels, but that was as far as his tolerance went.

well dp acknowledges that the cats & me have carnivorous tendencies,so I feed the cats usually because the smell of cat food could turn even a carnivores stomach.

Strangely it didn't set off my morning sickness but dp's curries did, as did anything with basil in which meant no italian or indian food for ages.
Not much left to share after that , the other obvious alternative (chinese) seems to be creatively meaty. (had a chinese housemate at uni. who loved chicken feet soup - first time I saw it I though the rest of the chicken was headfirst in there too)

DH seems to have found that curry is the best option for eating out. Anywhere else always seems to be some sort of ricotta and spinach cannelonni or a cheese and broccoli bake. Not very impressive. Luckily I like a good chicken tikka masala while he tucks into a veg balti and we're both happy.

Weirdly, basil has been the thing that I can't even bear to be in the same room as since I got pregnant. I used to love Nigel Slater's lemon and basil linguine, and hope I will again, but right now, as I'm still throwing up every day, I can't even imagine that happening.

macneil I know that feeling - also went right off quorn (which is my meat substitute of choice).
thought I would never feel normal again, & now that I do I'm talking about trying for another baby - short memory

binkacat - also like thai curries but have to be careful about liberal use of fish sauce.

And as a final note on this subject I'd just like to say how nice it is to know that there are other carnivorous females out there with fluffy veggie dp's

I've lost count of the number of times the veggie dish gets put in front of me and the steak in front of dh even though it was quite clear who ordered what. Most people assume that in a relationship of veggie and non-veggie that it is the woman who is veggie.